Effectively Wild Episode 2494: Culture WAR

by
June 18, 2026

EWFI
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, please visit our Patreon.

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley discuss the backlash to MLB’s initial statement about the Giants’ objectors to Pride Night, the league’s subsequent expanded statement, and the facts about the policies and punishments (or the lack thereof) pertaining to uniform alterations. Then (37:10) they banter about the Blue Jays’ ballot dominance in early All-Star voting, the history of teams being overrepresented on All-Star rosters, the Mariners’ piggyback pitching plan, and Curtis Washington Jr. as the ultimate phantom ballplayer, answer emails (1:19:28) about where the next two-way player might come from and whether Pete Crow-Armstrong’s defensive value is underrated, and Stat Blast (1:31:56) about where franchise scoring records tend to be set, the biggest run differentials in games with equivalent times on base, days when one team outscored many other teams combined, Boston’s lack of late comebacks, and teams whose win totals did or didn’t match their WAR totals.

Audio intro: Austin Klewan, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio outro: Andy Ellison, “Effectively Wild Theme”

Link to wisdom teeth etymology
Link to Domínguez tooth news
Link to Ohtani gamer
Link to MLB’s initial statement
Link to assorted bad tweets
Link to MLB’s second statement
Link to story about statements
Link to Hawley letter story
Link to story about backlash
Link to CBA
Link to Josh Hawley fleeing footage
Link to Noah Hawley wiki
Link to Vesia tribute story
Link to California Post story
Link to All-Star vote totals
Link to AL 2B WAR leaders
Link to Blue Jays voting story 1
Link to Blue Jays voting story 2
Link to Blue Jays WAR leaders
Link to team All-Star records
Link to 2015 Royals voting story
Link to 2015 Royals All-Stars
Link to 2026 YoY attendance
Link to 2015 YoY attendance
Link to 2023 Braves All-Stars story
Link to Mariners piggyback plan
Link to Ben on the ’93 A’s
Link to Washington call-up story 1
Link to Washington call-up story 2
Link to Washington call-up story 3
Link to Washington scouting report
Link to Washington demotion story
Link to Rob Mains on roster limits
Link to Ben on Padres Rule 5 guys
Link to phantom ballplayers wiki
Link to Ben on Ohtani’s origin story
Link to Las Vegas stats
Link to Rockies record score
Link to scoring differentials data
Link to 9/2/01 scoreboard
Link to ninth-inning scoring splits
Link to FG mailbag answer
Link to team WAR/wins data
Link to listener emails database
Link to HRD format report
Link to HRD format history

 Sponsor Us on Patreon
 Give a Gift Subscription
 Email Us: podcast@fangraphs.com
 Effectively Wild Subreddit
 Effectively Wild Wiki
 Apple Podcasts Feed 
 Spotify Feed
 YouTube Playlist
 Facebook Group
 Bluesky Account
 Twitter Account
 Get Our Merch!

Podcast (effectively-wild): Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

You Aren't a FanGraphs Member
It looks like you aren't yet a FanGraphs Member (or aren't logged in). We aren't mad, just disappointed.
We get it. You want to read this article. But before we let you get back to it, we'd like to point out a few of the good reasons why you should become a Member.
1. Ad Free viewing! We won't bug you with this ad, or any other.
2. Unlimited articles! Non-Members only get to read 10 free articles a month. Members never get cut off.
3. Dark mode and Classic mode!
4. Custom player page dashboards! Choose the player cards you want, in the order you want them.
5. One-click data exports! Export our projections and leaderboards for your personal projects.
6. Remove the photos on the home page! (Honestly, this doesn't sound so great to us, but some people wanted it, and we like to give our Members what they want.)
7. Even more Steamer projections! We have handedness, percentile, and context neutral projections available for Members only.
8. Get FanGraphs Walk-Off, a customized year end review! Find out exactly how you used FanGraphs this year, and how that compares to other Members. Don't be a victim of FOMO.
9. A weekly mailbag column, exclusively for Members.
10. Help support FanGraphs and our entire staff! Our Members provide us with critical resources to improve the site and deliver new features!
We hope you'll consider a Membership today, for yourself or as a gift! And we realize this has been an awfully long sales pitch, so we've also removed all the other ads in this article. We didn't want to overdo it.




 

Comments are closed.